Review of Space Marine by Ian Watson

In my burgeoning exploration of Warhammer fiction, I'm perusing lists, posts, and reddit, trying to find something that pokes its nose above the literally hundreds and hundreds of novels and anthologies published in the universe. I'm scared of all the author names I do not know—authors' styles being the primary reasons books are or aren't enjoyable, regardless content. It was thus seeing Ian Watson's name pop up, a name I'm pleasantly familiar with from other areas of science fiction, that piqued my interest. But the Reddit user's quote for Space Marine (1993) pushed me over the edge: a neon cocaine vision of war's future.

As the title hints, Space Marine is the story of a fresh recruit in the Emperor's galactic army. Needing to escape juvenile delinquency on his backwater planet, Lexandro D'Arquebus signs up to be a marine and starts the inexplicably arduous transformation from human youth to augmented soldier. Extreme pain, extreme body modifications, and extreme psychological indoctrination is just the beginning of D'Arquebus' fractured journey, rawboned recruit to chaotic battlefield.

Console Corner: Review of Desperados III

There are games like the Dishonored series and the original Assassin's Creed, games which emphasize stealth. But playing them, the feeling of stealth is always limited given the first-person perspective and space it share with other aspects of gameplay—rpg, story, side quests, etc. On the other hand there are games like Hitman, games which truly force the player to think how they are going to navigate a space to set up a kill and accomplish an objective. This is precisely the bread and butter of Desperados III. Cowboys sneaking and shooting their way across the Wild West, it makes for some of the best, truly stealth experiences in modern gaming.

Desperados III is a real time tactics (RTT) game. Map by map, players take on the role of a group of five heroes attempting to stealthily navigate spaces filled with enemies to complete objectives—kill a certain bad guy, get everyone in the group to a specific place, collect an object, etc. The baddies all move in preset patterns and have detection viewcones which sweep the areas. If they see/detect one of the heroes, they raise the alarm and attack, which usually means game over.

Review of False Gods by Graham McNeill

Highly skeptical cracking the book open, I was pleasantly surprised, perhaps even shocked, how good Horus Rising by Dan Abnett is, first book in the Horus Heresy series. Where a lot of franchise fiction tends to be commercial (mediocre writing, cheap plotting, cheesy dialogue, low expectations for readers, etc.), I was in awe of how well a book based on a tabletop game could capture many of the ideas inherent to the best fiction about war and colonialism. The fact there was space marines blasting away at aliens (aka eye candy) laced throughout the book had me wanting more. Enter Graham McNeil's False Gods (2006), second book in the Horus Heresy. What could a different author do with the second installment in a multi-volume story?

False Gods picks up where Horus Rising left off. Due to the events on the planet Murder, Horus has consolidated his power among the Luna Wolves and is now looked at as a god among men by his brethren. In one of the opening scenes, the group are deciding where to pacify next. The elder Erebrus comes to the center of the group to declare that one of the worlds previously thought pacified by mankind has rebelled, and declared itself in opposition to the Emperor. Affronted, Horus decides to personally lead the Wolves into battle and tear down this planet once and for all. He may get more than he bargained for stepping personal foot into battle.

Review of Titanium Noir by Nick Harkaway

Nick Harkaway is one of few writers I get genuinely excited about when hearing of an upcoming book. Part of it is good timing (Harkaway releases a new novel once every three-five years, so there is ample time to appreciate those which have been released and be expectant for those to come—the next Beatles album). But most of it is authorial voice. Like David Mitchell, Catherynne Valente, Paul Di Filippo, Michael Chabon, and others, Harkaway's style is so colorfully dynamic as to offer pure joy in the act of reading itself—regardless plot, character, what have you. 2023's Titanium Noir—six years since Gnomen—was thus exploding on my radar. I went in literally knowing nothing save the author's name on the cover.

Titanium Noir is a piece of straight-forward detective noir. Set in the near future, gene therapy is available to the ultra rich, a process which both rejuvenates the body to puberty but likewise adds height and weight, thus creating modern titans. As with many a good piece of noir, our consulting detective, Cal Sounder, is called to the home of the deceased at the start of the story. In this case, it's Roddy Tebbit, a titan. Neat bullet hole in the head, he's been the subject of an execution-style killing. A lab researcher with an immaculately clean home, the reasons for his death are not immediately visible, and talking with the neighbors doesn't turn up any clues. It's only in digging into the nature of Tebbit's research that the trail gets hot. And likewise with any good noir, it's a trail that leads Sounder into a den of lions, super-sized ones.

Review of The Legend of Charlie Fish by Josh Rountree

Paul Bunyan, Johnny Appleseed, John Henry, Pecos Bill—the myths and legends of Americana are known to most. But what about Charlie Fish? Half man, half fish, John Rountree pulls him from the flood waters of Galveston, Texas circa 1900 in The Legend of Charlie Fish (Tachyon, 2023).

Part occult, part tall tale, and part urban legend, The Legend of Charlie Fish tells of a man named Floyd who goes on a journey to bury his father, and on his return home runs across several things—trouble, responsibility, and the outrageous. First is a pair of ruthless gangsters. Second is a pair of homeless children who Floyd agrees to help. And third is the titular fish man, Charlie, whom the gangsters are dragging from the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. The kids having a soft spot in their hearts for Charlie, Floyd finds himself under the evil eye of the two gangsters but caring for a damp, man-sized mackerel. The chase is on. Trouble for everyone is, larger dangers lurk.

Cardboard Corner: Review of Warhammer 40,000 Conquest: The Card Game

In ten years, I have unintentionally become something of an expandable card game connoisseur. Such experiences ping the endorphin radar in my mind—again and again and again... My poor wallet. I own more than a dozen and have played twice that, old and new. One observation I've had is that newer expandable games have learned from their forebears. Rather than settling for what is, many have eliminated design issues while offering fresh experiences. One standout modern experience is Warhammer 40,000 Conquest: The Card Game (2015).

Conquest does the near impossible: it encapsulates a massive universe of Warhammer lore in a hour of combat and planetary takeover. A two-player only game, each person chooses the warlord/faction they want to play (of which there are seven available in the core box), builds a deck of 50+ cards, shuffles, and goes to war. Arrayed in a line between the players are five planets, each with one of three different symbols. The first player to win three symbols of the same type or defeat their opponent's warlord, wins. That is the high-level view. Now, one level deeper.

Review of The Strange by Nathan Ballingrud

There is something to the idea that, once you know how something works it loses its magic. I envy cavemen who looked upon rainbows as mystical signs of the gods rather than just light refracting through the prism of moisture. In this regard, we know now that one of the markings of Literature is its ability to transcend, to be relevant regardless of era or cultural zeitgeist. Beyond space western, that is how I know that Nathan Ballingrud's The Strange (2023) is Literature. In an exception to the rule, the science of rainbows does not diminish the quality of the novel in any way, however.

The Strange is the story of Annabelle Crisp. The young daughter of a saloon owner, she serves the food and drink needs of the Martian town of New Galveston. Living with just her father, the pair, along with everyone else on Mars, are living through The Silence. Transportation to and from was once commonplace, but nothing has been heard from Earth in years, including Annabelle's mother. But Annabelle does have digital recordings of her, something she keeps in a treasured cylinder. When a miner from nearby Digtown refuses to pay for his meal one evening, a fight breaks out at the saloon, a fight in which the cylinder is stolen. The last thing she has from her mother on Mars, Annabelle determines to go to Digstown to get it back. And the fight is on.

Review of Nine Tenths by Jeff Macfee

The blue collar, world weary mystery solver with issues has been a thing for a century+. Existential troubles served with a bottle and pack of Marlboros, such men go about their sleuthing with a skeptical eye to their raison d'etre. You know it. You've read it. And yet it remains all about execution; write it well, and the formula can still sing, such is the border separating readable noir from derivative. Let's see where Jeff Macfee's cybernoir Nine Tenths (2022) falls on the spectrum.

Gayle is a repo man of cyber augments. Once working in the murky underworld of organized crime, he's gone clean and opened a business collecting the body implants and expensive tech that people are unable to pay for. But his past is not so far behind. A powerful piece of cyber tech that was supposed to be in government hands has gone missing and both sides, the police and criminals, think that Gayle can help them get it. Squeezed from all around, Gayle is forced to join the hunt in an attempt to finally put the past behind him.

Review of Ten Low by Stark Holborn

In our metamodern science fiction of today, anything goes. There is no Golden Age, Silver Age, New Wave, Cyberpunk, whatever. The writer is free to pick from anything, combine anything, and strike out in any direction in an effort to make a sale. Looking to go space western with a relatable character is Stark Holborn's Ten Low (2021).

Ten Low is the story of Ten Low. Ha. A wanted ex-con, she is wandering the desert of a frontier planet to avoid bounty hunters when the book kicks off. Coming over a rise in the dunes she encounters a crashed space ship. A young woman who claims to be an army general is the lone survivor, and Ten puts her medical talents to use helping her. The pair travel to a nearby desert town and part ways—or so they think. Ten Low's rescue triggering a series of events, bounty hunters become the least of her problems.

Review of Beyond the Reach of Earth by Ken Macleod

Beyond the Reach of Earth (2023) by Ken Macloed is the second novel in a trilogy, thus I will not waste time on a clever intro. What you really want to know is: has Macleod made it worth my while to continue the series?

The short answer is, if you enjoyed Hallowed Sky, it's likely Reach will likewise engage. Macleod's prose is the same workaday. The story still jumps time and space dynamically. And the mystery of the fermi and FTL persists. At the macro level, Macleod has given readers reasons to stick around. So, how does the series evolve at the micro level?

Where Hallowed Sky was predominantly Earth-centric, Reach is predominantly extraterrestrial—many planets, in fact. Another way of putting this is, Reach is a tour of the corridors of Macleod's imagination as to how life could realistically evolve on other, life-sustaining planetary spheres. Where the Golden Age of sf had license to freely violate whatever laws of science they wanted in presenting aliens and alien worlds, Macleod tries to respect said laws. Such a volume of planetary spheres in the novel, in fact, it's likely the reader's like or dislike will hinge on how they feel Macleod handles realistic extrapolation.